How old is the book he mentions? Is the argument still viewed seriously apart from a mental exercise?
If the answer is yes, I'd be puzzled. It's naive to think that computers in XXIII century will be anything like current ones. We are after all machines and I find no reason any complexity (quantum, midichlorians or whatever) that we have can't be introduced in the construction of future computers.
That's like a XIX scientist saying that a microscope will never be able to see atoms. Surely he could have demonstrated it with good math.
Rephrased. the argument should be "computers as are built now can't think" that is so obvious simply because lack of power.
A reasonable simulation of conscience that tries to resemble that of a living organism would need at the very least senses, pain/pleasure, feedback (if I want to move, I can,) all throwed in an integration layer that "feels" everything at once.
First we should see if we're able to simulate an ant, then a mathematician brain :-)
Current simulations of living beings or colonies have value for statistical studies, but they're nothing in which that impossibility assertions can base.
It may still be viewed seriously by people who really want to believe that there's something essentially different about human consciousness, and that we are not "just" fancy meat-computers.
I don't know if it has ever been taken seriously by anyone who doesn't approach the problem from that point of view, though.
If the answer is yes, I'd be puzzled. It's naive to think that computers in XXIII century will be anything like current ones. We are after all machines and I find no reason any complexity (quantum, midichlorians or whatever) that we have can't be introduced in the construction of future computers.
That's like a XIX scientist saying that a microscope will never be able to see atoms. Surely he could have demonstrated it with good math.
Rephrased. the argument should be "computers as are built now can't think" that is so obvious simply because lack of power.
A reasonable simulation of conscience that tries to resemble that of a living organism would need at the very least senses, pain/pleasure, feedback (if I want to move, I can,) all throwed in an integration layer that "feels" everything at once.
First we should see if we're able to simulate an ant, then a mathematician brain :-)
Current simulations of living beings or colonies have value for statistical studies, but they're nothing in which that impossibility assertions can base.